Bird Encyclopedia
Search and identify 1,000+ birds — with size, habitat, diet, voice, behavior, and the field marks that tell them apart.
Lucy's Warbler
One of North America's smallest warblers, a pale gray desert species with a chestnut rump and crown patch, unusual among warblers for nesting in tree cavities.
songbird
Monk Parakeet
A small green Neotropical parakeet uniquely known for building large, elaborate communal stick nests rather than nesting in tree cavities.
parrot
Long-tailed Sylph
An Andean hummingbird whose males trail a spectacularly long, deeply forked, iridescent blue-green tail nearly three times the length of the body.
hummingbird
Lesser Black-backed Gull
A medium-large European gull with a dark slate mantle and yellow legs, increasingly common as a wintering visitor to North America in recent decades.
seabird
Domestic Canary
The domesticated form of the wild Atlantic Canary, bred over centuries into many color and song varieties from its natural yellow-green ancestor.
songbird
D'Arnaud's Barbet
An East African ground barbet with black-and-white speckled plumage, a yellow face, and a bubbling duet call, often seen bobbing near termite mounds.
other
Blackpoll Warbler
A boreal-breeding warbler famous for its extraordinary nonstop transoceanic migration flight from the northeastern U.S. to South America.
songbird
Chimney Swift
A dark, cigar-shaped aerial bird that nests almost exclusively in chimneys across eastern North America, spending nearly its entire life on the wing.
other
Bufflehead
North America's smallest diving duck, the compact drake striking with a large white patch wrapping around an iridescent black-and-purple head.
waterfowl
Buff-banded Rail
A boldly barred, secretive rail with a chestnut nape and buff breast band, found skulking in wetland vegetation across Australia and the Pacific.
wading-bird
Bohemian Waxwing
A sleek, crested, silky-plumaged bird of the northern boreal forest that erupts south in unpredictable, nomadic winter flocks to feast on berries.
songbird
Clay-colored Sparrow
A pale, delicately patterned sparrow with a gray nape and brown-streaked crown, giving its distinctive buzzy insect-like song from prairie shrubs.
songbird
Chestnut-headed Oropendola
A colonial-nesting blackbird relative with a rich chestnut head and pale-tipped bill, famous for its long, hanging, woven nests dangling from tall trees.
songbird
Cave Swallow
A cliff-swallow relative with a buffy forehead and throat that nests colonially under bridges and in caves and culverts across the southern US and Caribbean.
songbird
Cattle Egret
A stocky, short-necked white egret closely associated with grazing livestock, whose remarkable natural range expansion made it one of the most successful bird colonizations in modern history.
wading-bird
Altamira Oriole
The largest oriole in the United States, a bright orange bird found only in the Rio Grande Valley of extreme south Texas, famous for weaving the longest hanging nest of any North American bird.
songbird
Meadow Pipit
A streaky, unassuming ground bird of open moorland and grassland, often first noticed by its rising, parachuting song-flight or its thin call as it flushes underfoot.
songbird
Sun Parakeet
A dazzling small parakeet clothed in vivid golden-yellow and orange, with green and blue flight feathers, now endangered in the wild due to trapping for the pet trade.
parrot
Pyrrhuloxia
A close desert relative of the Northern Cardinal, gray overall with red highlights and a stubby, parrot-like yellow bill, common in arid brushland of the Southwest.
songbird
White Stork
The iconic white-and-black European stork with a long red bill and legs, famous for nesting on rooftops and chimneys and for its folklore association with delivering babies.
wading-bird
Wattled Jacana
A chestnut-and-black marsh bird with extraordinarily long toes that let it walk across floating lily pads, notable for its role-reversed breeding system.
wading-bird
Village Weaver
A widespread, noisy African weaver whose breeding males show a black hood, a mottled black-and-yellow back, and red eyes, best known for large, busy nesting colonies.
songbird
Red-headed Woodpecker
A striking, boldly patterned woodpecker with an entirely crimson head and a strongly contrasting black-and-white body, now declining across much of its range.
woodpecker
Tropical Kingbird
A common, widespread tropical flycatcher with a gray head, olive back, lemon-yellow belly, and a rapid twittering call, nearly identical to Couch's Kingbird.
songbird